


Spark by Irreplaceable Spark

by GirlWithaPearlEarring



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, BAMF Gwen, BAMF Morgana, Changing Tenses, F/F, F/M, Gwen-centric, M/M, Merlin is a Little Shit, Reincarnation, The tense changes are important though, Time Travel, Without meaning to be, poor Gwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWithaPearlEarring/pseuds/GirlWithaPearlEarring
Summary: [Originally published on ff.net on June 18, 2012.]Gwen is cursed to go through history while retaining all of her memories. Kind of a general story told from Gwen's POV, cause she needs more love in this fandom.





	Spark by Irreplaceable Spark

**Author's Note:**

> "Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists...it is real...it is possible...it's yours."
> 
> -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

She's learned she's too deeply entwined to stay out of it completely. Someone finds her sooner or later.

 

* * *

 

"What are you doing here?" Arthur's look of shocked surprise was almost comical in its honesty.

She was expecting this reaction though and her determination to see it through doesn't waver. "She was my friend too, Arthur."

Her tone was smaller than she wanted but steely enough to make Arthur's jaw tighten in resigned frustration. Merlin, however, looked almost...approving. Her homemade sword felt light against her side, the hilt shapely beneath her hand.

"So are we doing this or just standing around all day?"

Gwen was forgotten in a rush as Arthur turned to glare at him. "Merlin..."

Merlin raised his eyebrows in a deliberately insubordinate way and turned to enter the cave. Arthur's face went flat but he followed anyway, leaving Gwen to catch up on her own.

 

* * *

 

The first time she sees him again she's still grieving and the shock of it nearly kills her.

She doesn't always look the same; sometimes blonde, sometimes closer to Morgana, but his hair is always golden. She never learns what it looks like with age. It seems destiny never changes. Merlin's eyes are always blue and he never stops being remarkable and Arthur will always choose him.

Every time.

 

* * *

 

The caverns were dark and cold with no decoration or indication of inhabitants. Gwen's heart twinged but her will remained. _This was for the best._

 

* * *

 

The first time it happens, she wakes up in a vaguely content haze amidst a pile of silken sheets with beautiful black hair flung over her pillow.

She looks for a long time at Morgana's sleeping face before realizing what's bothering her.

It was never like this before. Morgana was her friend, her confidante, her liege, her _lady_. Never lover.

She wonders about it before taking a slow breath and reminding herself that each time is different. Love is constant; only the form changes. Her slowly forming panic attack builds into a ball of nerves then dissolves.

 

* * *

 

They traveled for almost five minutes in silence, Merlin's orb of blue light lighting the way forward. Suddenly, Arthur reached out and grasped Merlin's shoulder. The light pulsed brightly before going dark.

They stood together, listening hard. A shift of weight. A quiet breath. Someone was there.

 

* * *

 

Fiery red hair sways alluringly as the model glides down the walkway, the silk of the dress swishing audibly behind her. For all that the girl is five foot nothing with light gray eyes and a stick physique, she recognizes Morgana immediately.

If asked—if only someone _could—_ she'd say it's her mouth. The confident little dig in the corner with that specific cant of general amusement.

She finds her later, slips into her old persona to give an endearingly awkward compliment. It earns her a genuine laugh, the only reason for the act, and it's far too easy to follow her back to her apartment.

 

* * *

 

Excalibur rasped quietly and Gwen caught a glimpse of metal in the dark. Her own sword now felt heavy in her hands. A flash of gold was her only warning before the wall erupted in front of her, boulders flying. Merlin shouted an ancient word and a wall of blue light enfolded her and Arthur while the rocks bounced harmlessly away.

"Merlin!" Arthur's cry was furious. He banged Excalibur against the wall in something close to desperation while Gwen stared in wonder at the two mages. Blue clashed against purple again and again, magical fires igniting and the cave trembling around them.

Gwen came to life and attempted to slice through the wall with Arthur. While Excalibur caused the wall to yield slightly, brighter flares of color branching from the points of contact, Gwen's sword made not the slightest impression. _Excalibur's power or Merlin's will?_ she wondered passively.

 

* * *

 

She tries to break it up once: the same story playing out over and over again, slowly driving her mad. She runs away with her brother when he inevitably suggests it. It causes a chain, a ripple in her mind.

She's braver the next time. Morgana is certainly better off for it, but someone always has to suffer.

The next time, half-crazy with the desire to do _something_ , she aims at the heart. It works, which is perhaps the most terrifying aspect.

Arthur and Merlin never meet.

Those are the longest years of her existence. It seems destiny exists for a reason.

She lives her next turn in a daze of relief and wholeness, forgetting to grieve for Lancelot and glossing over Morgana completely.

To have lived through something she couldn't have imagined is soul-changing. She comes out of it a different person, if only there was someone to notice.

"Playing God" doesn't come close.

 

* * *

 

Merlin suddenly cried out and the magical wall faded. Arthur wasted no time in going after Morgana. Her grin widened an obscene amount as she pulled out twin daggers with frightening agility.

Gwen spared one wide-eyed glance for her former friend before rushing over to Merlin's fallen figure. She shook him gently then more roughly, tapping his face frantically as the fight escalated behind her.

 

* * *

 

There comes a moment, standing on the balcony of Morgana's highrise in nothing but a sheet, that she realizes she knows what everyone tastes like.

If there was a time it would have bothered her, she can't recall. Her definition of who she was—is—is so distant, she no longer labels anything, herself least of all.

Morgana is her comfort zone, especially now she knows she can bring her back to herself. Doesn't have to watch the madness creeping from beneath, slowly taking over.

Arthur will always be special and so she indulges rarely, content to leave him to whatever relationship him and Merlin would play out this time.

Lancelot always finds her and always leaves her. She's given up denying that part of herself for fear of breaking her soul completely.

She's even had a lasting marriage with Leon and, on more than one memorable occasion, Gwaine. In some ways, his dance through life is just as wonderful as Morgana's sheer temerity.

She considers a fling with Elyan for all the time it takes to fly into a full-blown panic attack reminiscent of her Camelot days.

No, she's past defining herself.

 

* * *

 

"Merlin?" she asked. Was that her voice? "Merlin, please, you've got to get up. Merlin!"

He jerked suddenly, his eyes shooting open, just as Gwen heard a sword falling and Morgana's mad laughter bouncing against the walls.

 

* * *

 

It's not always depressing or madness-inducing; she even manages to enjoy herself on occasion.

Her favorite turn is as part of a traveling circus, helping Morgana choose just the right shawl and bangles for the maximum mystical effect and running errands for Gaius while he cooks enough for an army every night.

Merlin has real magic then, one of the few times since Camelot, and watching him in the arena stills her every time. He doesn't tell her though.

He never does.

 

* * *

 

It all happened so fast. Gwen looked back to see Arthur helpless on the ground, Morgana's daggers crossed over his throat. A moment of horrified stillness. A once loved voice poisoned by insanity.

"You die today, Arthur Pendragon."

 

* * *

 

Merlin is never even considered. It's not a matter of attraction. (She still remembers her first kiss: all giddy enthusiasm and he'd looked so _shocked_.)

While Arthur has room in his heart for a kingdom, even if Merlin always comes first, Merlin's world begins and ends with Arthur. She simply has no place there.

 

* * *

 

Even as she rocked to her heels, Gwen registered a swift movement beside her before Merlin's voice said, cold and deathly still, "Bregdan anwiele gefeluc."

There was the clink of metal, startled awareness in Morgana's eyes, and Gwen looked away.

The sickening sound of flesh being torn.

When she opened her eyes, Merlin's hand was still raised, the fingers completely steady, and his eyes were hard and empty, the gold slowly receding.

Gwen has never been so terrified.

 

* * *

 

She wonders about Merlin sometimes.

She gets caught up in the underworld one time. She barely recognizes herself in the mirrored walls, her hair sleek and shiny and her dress doubly so.

Arthur's made a name for himself here, a dark prince of a shadowy realm. His power is felt in every corner of the empire, a solid presence known to allies and enemies alike.

It isn't what everyone whispers about in dark corners though. Hard men with world-weary eyes and vicious moralities: all the villains of the world.

They talk about a shadow of a man, a mysterious entity that strikes without hesitation or conscience, loyal only to Mr. Pendragon. They say he was born of darkness and demons, barely human.

She never meets him and she never regrets it.

She wonders though.

 

* * *

 

She lurched away and stumbled toward Arthur and the quivering, gasping form of Morgana. Arthur's gardbrace was solid and reassuring under her hand as she gazed steadily at Uther's ward. She felt her mouth go into a hard, unyielding line and did not change it.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes she's too late and all she has to hold is a cold gravestone, already eroding in the rain.

 

* * *

 

Morgana looked from the protruding dagger hilts slowly up to Merlin, to Arthur, and finally to Gwen. She gasped wetly as her expression fled from itself, scrambling into genuine fear.

Arthur flung out an arm when Morgana slowly extended a trembling hand toward Gwen.

"Guinevere?" she asked in sudden recognition. Gwen's mind flashed back to nights woken by screams and frightened blue eyes struggling to sort reality from nightmares. She swallowed hard.

"Guinevere?" she asked again, a child's voice. "I'm cold, Gwen. Will you close the window?"

Her hand was still reaching, lost between them. Gwen pushed Arthur aside and enfolded it in her own.

"It's done, my lady," she said.

 

* * *

 

There's even a time when all four of them are born as siblings and her love is able to shine through the ages for just a moment.

In the end, love is what saves her. Her love for these people in her life, always in her life, is her beacon of hope. It keeps her alive, it keeps her sane, it keeps her _present_.

She can't decide if it's enough, though.

 

* * *

 

Morgana sighed, long and content. The mist flowed from her mouth, glowing in the dying gold of her eyes. As she fell, Gwen let her hand slip away. The mist swirled around her, her lungs filled—fill—she breathes in magic and _falls_.

 

* * *

 

"She meant it for you," Merlin says later. So much later. "She wanted you to change everything."

"Have I?" Surprisingly, she finds she can still fan that kernel of pure rage. _Why did he never_ tell _her?_ and smaller, in the back of her head, _Why did he never tell me?_

There's a spark in his eyes. Is it gold? She can't tell anymore.

She's so tired.

"Maybe."

It's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> -Merlin's spell is used in the show as a way to strengthen mortal (i.e. normal) weapons and a gardbrace is the plate on a suit of armor that covers the left shoulder. The more you know!™


End file.
